According to the reservation between us, of taking up one
of the subjects of our correspondence at a time, I turn to
your letters of Aug. 16. and Sep. 2.

The passage you quote from Theognis, I think has an
Ethical, rather than a political object. The whole piece is a
moral exhortation,, and this passage particularly
seems to be a reproof to man, who, while with his
domestic animals he is curious to improve the race by employing
always the finest male, pays no attention to the
improvement of his own race, but intermarries with the
vicious, the ugly, or the old, for considerations of wealth
or ambition. It is in conformity with the principle adopted
afterwards by the Pythagoreans, and expressed by Ocellus
in another form.
etc.--
. Which, as literally
as intelligibility will admit, may be thus translated.
"Concerning the interprocreation of men, how, and of
whom it shall be, in a perfect manner, and according to
the laws of modesty and sanctity, conjointly, this is what I
think right. First to lay it down that we do not commix for
the sake of pleasure, but of the procreation of children.
For the powers, the organs and desires for coition have
not been given by god to man for the sake of pleasure, but
for the procreation of the race. For as it were incongruous
for a mortal born to partake of divine life, the immortality
of the race being taken away, god fulfilled the purpose by
making the generations uninterrupted and continuous.
This therefore we are especially to lay down as a principle,
that coition is not for the sake of pleasure." But Nature,
not trusting to this moral and abstract motive, seems to
have provided more securely for the perpetuation of the
species by making it the effect of the oestrum implanted
in the constitution of both sexes. And not only has the
commerce of love been indulged on this unhallowed impulse,
but made subservient also to wealth and ambition
by marriages without regard to the beauty, the healthiness,
the understanding, or virtue of the subject from which we
are to breed. The selecting the best male for a Haram of
well chosen females also, which Theognis seems to recommend
from the example of our sheep and asses, would
doubtless improve the human, as it does the brute animal,
and produce a race of veritable [aristocrats]. For
experience proves that the moral and physical qualities of
man, whether good or evil, are transmissible in a certain
degree from father to son. But I suspect that the equal
rights of men will rise up against this privileged Solomon,
and oblige us to continue acquiescence under the
[the degeneration of the race of
men] which Theognis complains of, and to content ourselves
with the accidental aristoi produced by the fortuitous
concourse of breeders. For I agree with you that
there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of
this are virtue and talents. Formerly bodily powers gave
place among the aristoi. But since the invention of gunpowder
has armed the weak as well as the strong with missile
death, bodily strength, like beauty, good humor, politeness
and other accomplishments, has become but an
auxiliary ground of distinction. There is also an artificial
aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either
virtue or talents; for with these it would belong to the first
class. The natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious
gift of nature for the instruction, the trusts, and government
of society. And indeed it would have been inconsistent
in creation to have formed man for the social state,
and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enough to
manage the concerns of the society. May we not even say
that that form of government is the best which provides
the most effectually for a pure selection of these natural
aristoi into the offices of government? The artificial aristocracy
is a mischievous ingredient in government, and
provision should be made to prevent it's ascendancy. On
the question, What is the best provision, you and I differ;
but we differ as rational friends, using the free exercise of
our own reason, and mutually indulging it's errors. You
think it best to put the Pseudo-aristoi into a separate
chamber of legislation where they may be hindered from
doing mischief by their coordinate branches, and where
also they may be a protection to wealth against the Agrarian
and plundering enterprises of the Majority of the people.
I think that to give them power in order to prevent
them from doing mischief, is arming them for it, and increasing
instead of remedying the evil. For if the coordinate
branches can arrest their action, so may they that of
the coordinates. Mischief may be done negatively as well
as positively. Of this a cabal in the Senate of the U. S. has
furnished many proofs. Nor do I believe them necessary
to protect the wealthy; because enough of these will find
their way into every branch of the legislation to protect
themselves. From 15. to 20. legislatures of our own, in action
for 30. years past, have proved that no fears of an
equalisation of property are to be apprehended from
them.

I think the best remedy is exactly that provided by all
our constitutions, to leave to the citizens the free election
and separation of the aristoi from the pseudo-aristoi, of
the wheat from the chaff. In general they will elect the real
good and wise. In some instances, wealth may corrupt, and
birth blind them; but not in sufficient degree to endanger
the society.

It is probable that our difference of opinion may in
some measure be produced by a difference of character in
those among whom we live. From what I have seen of
Massachusets and Connecticut myself, and still more from
what I have heard, and the character given of the former
by yourself, who know them so much better, there seems
to be in those two states a traditionary reverence for certain
families, which has rendered the offices of the government
nearly hereditary in those families. I presume that
from an early period of your history, members of these
families happening to possess virtue and talents, have honestly
exercised them for the good of the people, and by
their services have endeared their names to them.

In coupling Connecticut with you, I mean it politically
only, not morally. For having made the Bible the Common
law of their land they seem to have modelled their morality
on the story of Jacob and Laban. But altho' this hereditary
succession to office with you may in some degree be
founded in real family merit, yet in a much higher degree
it has proceeded from your strict alliance of church and
state. These families are canonised in the eyes of the people
on the common principle "you tickle me, and I will
tickle you." In Virginia we have nothing of this. Our
clergy, before the revolution, having been secured against
rivalship by fixed salaries, did not give themselves the
trouble of acquiring influence over the people. Of wealth,
there were great accumulations in particular families,
handed down from generation to generation under the
English law of entails. But the only object of ambition for
the wealthy was a seat in the king's council. All their court
then was paid to the crown and it's creatures; and they
Philipised in all collisions between the king and people.
Hence they were unpopular; and that unpopularity continues
attached to their names. A Randolph, a Carter,
or a Burwell must have great personal superiority over a
common competitor to be elected by the people, even at
this day.

At the first session of our legislature after the Declaration
of Independance, we passed a law abolishing entails.
And this was followed by one abolishing the privilege of
Primogeniture, and dividing the lands of intestates equally
among all their children, or other representatives. These
laws, drawn by myself, laid the axe to the root of Pseudoaristocracy.
And had another which I prepared been
adopted by the legislature, our work would have been
compleat. It was a Bill for the more general diffusion of
learning. This proposed to divide every county into wards
of 5. or 6. miles square, like your townships; to establish
in each ward a free school for reading, writing and common
arithmetic; to provide for the annual selection of the
best subjects from these schools who might receive at the
public expense a higher degree of education at a district
school; and from these district schools to select a certain
number of the most promising subjects to be compleated
at an University, where all the useful sciences should be
taught. Worth and genius would thus have been sought
out from every condition of life, and compleatly prepared
by education for defeating the competition of wealth and
birth for public trusts.

My proposition had for a further object to impart to
these wards those portions of self-government for which
they are best qualified, by confiding to them the care of
their poor, their roads, police, elections, the nomination of
jurors, administration of justice in small cases, elementary
exercises of militia, in short, to have made them little republics,
with a Warden at the head of each, for all those
concerns which, being under their eye, they would better
manage than the larger republics of the county or state. A
general call of ward-meetings by their Wardens on the
same day thro' the state would at any time produce the
genuine sense of the people on any required point, and
would enable the state to act in mass, as your people have
so often done, and with so much effect, by their town
meetings. The law for religious freedom, which made a
part of this system, having put down the aristocracy of the
clergy, and restored to the citizen the freedom of the
mind, and those of entails and descents nurturing an
equality of condition among them, this on Education
would have raised the mass of the people to the high
ground of moral respectability necessary to their own
safety, and to orderly government; and would have compleated
the great object of qualifying them to select the
veritable aristoi, for the trusts of government, to the exclusion
of the Pseudalists: and the same Theognis who has
furnished the epigraphs of your two letters assures us that
"
["Curnis,
good men have never harmed any city"]. Altho' this law
has not yet been acted on but in a small and inefficient
degree, it is still considered as before the legislature, with
other bills of the revised code, not yet taken up, and I have
great hope that some patriotic spirit will, at a favorable
moment, call it up, and make it the key-stone of the arch
of our government.

With respect to Aristocracy, we should further consider
that, before the establishment of the American states,
nothing was known to History but the Man of the old
world, crouded within limits either small or overcharged,
and steeped in the vices which that situation generates. A
government adapted to such men would be one thing; but
a very different one that for the Man of these states. Here
every one may have land to labor for himself if he chuses;
or, preferring the exercise of any other industry, may exact
for it such compensation as not only to afford a comfortable
subsistence, but wherewith to provide for a cessation
from labor in old age. Every one, by his property, or
by his satisfactory situation, is interested in the support of
law and order. And such men may safely and advantageously
reserve to themselves a wholsome controul over
their public affairs, and a degree of freedom, which in the
hands of the Canaille of the cities of Europe, would be
instantly perverted to the demolition and destruction of
every thing public and private. The history of the last 25.
years of France, and of the last 40. years in America, nay
of it's last 200. years, proves the truth of both parts of this
observation.

But even in Europe a change has sensibly taken place in
the mind of Man. Science had liberated the ideas of those
who read and reflect, and the American example had kindled
feelings of right in the people. An insurrection has
consequently begun, of science, talents and courage
against rank and birth, which have fallen into contempt. It
has failed in it's first effort, because the mobs of the cities,
the instrument used for it's accomplishment, debased by
ignorance, poverty and vice, could not be restrained to rational
action. But the world will recover from the panic of
this first catastrophe. Science is progressive, and talents
and enterprize on the alert. Resort may be had to the people
of the country, a more governable power from their
principles and subordination; and rank, and birth, and
tinsel-aristocracy will finally shrink into insignificance,
even there. This however we have no right to meddle with.
It suffices for us, if the moral and physical condition of
our own citizens qualifies them to select the able and good
for the direction of their government, with a recurrence
of elections at such short periods as will enable them to
displace an unfaithful servant before the mischief he meditates
may be irremediable.

I have thus stated my opinion on a point on which we
differ, not with a view to controversy, for we are both too
old to change opinions which are the result of a long life
of inquiry and reflection; but on the suggestion of a former
letter of yours, that we ought not to die before we
have explained ourselves to each other. We acted in perfect
harmony thro' a long and perilous contest for our liberty
and independance. A constitution has been acquired
which, tho neither of us think perfect, yet both consider as
competent to render our fellow-citizens the happiest and
the securest on whom the sun has ever shone. If we do not
think exactly alike as to it's imperfections, it matters little
to our country which, after devoting to it long lives of disinterested
labor, we have delivered over to our successors
in life, who will be able to take care of it, and of themselves.

The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams. Edited by Lester J. Cappon. 2 vols. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia, 1959.